Pumpkins, Legumes, & Crabs! Oh My!

Picking up where we left off, Thursday wasn't the most exciting day ever. Basically, it consisted mostly of a great deal of homework, with breaks in between, catching up on Heroes: Season 2. That's really all I've got for Thursday...

Despite the fact that Chris and Caitlin ended up leaving for the weekend, Friday turned out to be a fun day. After classes ended, I hung out for a bit, and finished up a little more homework. Once I felt as though I had completed a sufficient amount for the day, Robert and I ventured over to the crafts store to see if we could find a few miscellaneous objects to spruce up our Halloween costumes. Later that evening, I decided to head over to UCF for Swing Knights. From about 8 to midnight, I enjoyed hanging out with other swing fans, dancing, meeting new people, learning new dance moves, and just having a good time. After the dance ended, I returned home and ended out the night, hanging out with Robert.

Saturday, our friend Melinda arrived in town. Around noon, I jumped into the car, and once again, headed over to UCF, to meet her and her mom for a quick lunch. It was a lot of fun getting to see them, hang out, and catch up for a bit. Following lunch, I made my return to the apartment. Robert and I deliberated as to what we should do to keep ourselves entertained for the remainder of the day. We decided that we should go scout out pumpkins, to see which Orlando pumpkin vendor would provide us with the best deals. Once we had completed our pumpkin scouting endeavor, we really had no desire to return home, as nothing exciting awaited us there. We inquired with the GPS on Robert's phone, and asked it to find us some nearby thrift stores. It, however, failed it's task and found us no such locations. We did, however, run across a nifty Asian supermarket. We killed some time in there, for a bit, and ultimately ended up leaving with a wonderful new set of reusable chopsticks! Add those to the list of awesome APT203 artifacts. Boosh!

Sunday probably turned out to be the most fun day of this entire past week. Starting, in chronological order, with the events of the morning, I left the apartment at about 9:50, expecting to arrive at UCF (which is about 7 minutes away), to pick up Bri, and head to church. Well, after numerous setbacks, and navigating my way through several police blockades, I managed to arrive at about 10:20. We immediately hit the road, and made our way to church. After a great service, we were given two options, as far as where everyone wanted to eat was concerned. Half of our friends headed to the mall food court, while the other half headed to CiCi's Pizza. Unable to conquer our indecision, we rolled down the windows on the way out of the parking lot and asked a random stranger to decide for us. Upon hearing his decision, we headed to the mall and met up in the food court with Ryan, Mateo, Stephen, and Jeanie, for some lunch. Once we had finished, we headed over to the Urban Outfitters store and browsed their immense and entertaining array of merchandise. Upon discovering that everyone else had left, Bri and I also made our exit, not forgetting to sample a few pieces of orange chicken, on the way out. On the drive home, we usually pass a bread factory, the smell of which is amazing when they're in the process of making bread. Several times we've discussed stopping in and seeing if they'd take us on a tour, but we've never actually followed through with it. Today we decided to change that. We took the exit towards the factory, and pulled into the establishment parking lot. Much to our dismay, however, as we approached the door, a man stopped us and informed us that they are closed on Sundays. Perhaps we'll try again next time... After dropping off Bri, I headed home and, once again, spent quite a few hours on schoolwork. Eventually, Chris arrived back to the apartment from Fort Myers. We hung out for awhile, until receiving a call from John, asking us if we'd enjoy going crab hunting at Cocoa Beach, again. Chris and I ventured to the coast, accompanied by John, Lindsay, James Greenwood, and Christian. Once again, we caught quite a few crustaceans. So much so that their holding bucket began to overflow. Also, turns out, I'm a pretty skilled crab hunter... who knew? I wonder if that'll ever come in handy for anything? Before leaving the Cocoa area, John decided we should stop by the 24 hour Dunkin Donuts. I don't recommend their peach tea. If you've ever wondered what an antique store tastes like, try one of those. A few other people tried a bit of it, and we all agreed that that's really the most accurate way of describing it's taste. There was just something about it... Finally, we made our way back to Orlando, ending an exciting day.

Monday, I awoke early and headed to school for Spanish class. Immediately following, I moseyed over to the IDS office and met with my advisor, about my remaining class schedule, as Thursday will be the day that Seniors can sign up for classes. Luckily, the meeting went very well, and the advisor informed me that I seemed to be on the right track to graduation. On the way home, I stopped by the pumpkin patch and grabbed a couple pumpkins, as today was the day we planned to do our annual pumpkin carving extravaganza. Chris, Robert, and I were joined by Caitlin, JM, John, Lindsay, Christian, and Leslie, and the pumpkin carving commenced! Chris made a volcano pumpkin, JM made a fancy pumpkin, complete with monocle, Caitlin made a headless horseman pumpkin, John and Lindsay made a spider pumpkin, Leslie enscribed the letter "A" into her pumpkin, Robert made pumpkin Cthulhu, and I constructed a pumpkin eating another, smaller, pumpkin. 'Twas a smashing success!


Following the pumpkin carving, and now joined by Ryan Kelly, we returned indoors for Muffin Monday/Castle night. After an exciting Halloween edition of Castle, we sat down for Muffin Monday, this week, with special Halloween edition pumpkin muffins. This week's topic of discussion: Legumes. We managed to not actually discuss legumes, however, but instead dance around the topic, discussing things loosely associated with, or sounding like the word legumes. At first, someone pointed out that legumes sounded like lagoons, which digressed into a discussion about how it would be amazing if someone combined the premises of the shows "Gilligan's Island" and "LOST". We also discussed how George Washington Carver didn't actually work with peanuts, but instead, peanuts were just his cover, as he worked with the Japanese, during World War II, trying to help them complete their work on the Death Ray before the United States could complete the Atomic Bomb. Yes, all of this and more came from the simple topic of legumes. Such is to be expected, and is quite typical of Muffin Mondays...

Tofa! (That's goodbye in Samoan)
-Nick, Robert, & Chris

All We Wanna Do Is Eat Your Brains

Well, once again, it's been a week since my last update. I'll do what I can to fill you in on the happenings of the past seven days. Why not get down to business and start off with Thursday?
Thursday started with my excruciatingly long Education class. Three hours of my professor reminiscing about Vietnam. How that relates to the subject material is anybody's guess. Note to self: Bring your Laptop to the next Face-to-Face class meeting... The rest of the day promised to be pretty exciting, though! We had plans to pick up a new couch, then assemble our zombie costumes for this year's Zombiecon. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, neither of those occurrences became reality. I'm not going to tell you that the day was a total bust, though... Yes, you guessed it! We made a rice bucket! Okay, let's be honest, not only did you probably not guess that, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. Well, allow me to enlighten you. Chris hurt his ankle a while back and heard that a good way of helping it heal is to stick it in a large quantity of rice. Don't ask me why rice has any sort of magical healing abilities, I guess that's just the way the universe works. Anyways, Chris bought a 50lb. bag of rice, and we filled one of those large plastic cargo tubs full of it. Rice shoes? Yes. Magnificent, I know.

I was excited that Friday had arrived. That meant that I got to go visit back home. Always an enjoyable time. Spanish class finally ended, I arrived back at the apartment, packed my clothes and whatnot, and headed home. The car ride was uneventful, and I arrived home in time to see my parents before they left for dinner. About a half an hour later, I met up with Andrew, Kory, and Jess, over at Andrew's apartment complex, so we could put together our costumes for the following night. Even though we didn't have our entire outfits assembled, we still managed to creep out some of the apartment complex residents, hanging out, around the pool area, where we were working. We figured that instead of hanging the costumes up somewhere to dry (Also omitting the fact that we didn't actually have anywhere to hang them), we decided to wear them out and about, around the Fort. We stopped at Walmart to pick up a bit more theatrical blood, as well as to meet up with Matt, Kortney, and Tanni. From there, we decided upon Denny's, and ventured that way. Needless to say, three zombies and a guy in a bloody clown outfit turned out to be a somewhat unsettling sight for graveyard shift employees of that particular establishment.

Saturday was the big day: Zombiecon '09! After venturing around, with Kory, for a good bit of the morning, trying to find a road that turned out not to actually exist, we finally found Jess' house. Soon after, upon request of Kory, we found ourselves, once again, at his favorite place in the world, Sun Harvest, to sample mass quantities of orange juice, at no cost to us. There, we met up with Andrew and called up Russ. When we had the plans figured out, we headed back to my house to put the finishing touches on our zombie costumes. My mom also offered to provide us with some pizza, which was also very much appreciated! 7:00 arrived and it was time for us to head to Zombiecon! Kory, Russ, Jess, Tanni, Andrew, Robert, and I arrived and hung out for awhile until eventually meeting up with Jeff, Jimbo, Vanessa, and Ashley. Though significantly less organized than the previous year, Zombiecon turned out be quite a bit of fun. The target audience for this year's Zombiecon, unfortunately, was the general Fort Myers population, most of whom's idea of fun is basically getting drunk (Also many of whom did not seem to get the general idea that, at Zombiecon, you dress like a zombie, and not a ninja turtle or a duck). Fortunately, for people such as ourselves who don't partake in such activities, it's pretty easy to make our own bit of fun, involving, but not limited to: Chasing unsuspecting strangers across downtown, photo-ops, the art exhibit, meeting other creatively dressed zombies, and just enjoying the one night of the year where it's perfectly normal to just roam the streets of downtown, dressed as a reanimated, cannibalistic corpse (Though that's really never stopped us from doing things like that on other days of the year, anyways). Overall, it was a lot of fun seeing friends I hadn't seen in awhile, and once again enjoying the wonderful event that is Zombiecon.

Sunday morning, I awoke to my dad telling me that the first thing I'd be doing for the day was going to clean the office. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, I like helping out, and cleaning the office, it's just that if you were up until 5am the night before, that's not the most pleasant of morning events. Afterwords, however, I met up with Sarah, for her lunch break, at the mall. Her bus from Miami got back late, the previous night, therefore not allowing her to attend Zombiecon, so we decided to go for some lunch, instead, while I was in town. So, we got to catch up for awhile, and eventually Kory joined us, but by that time, Sarah had to get back to work. On the way out of the mall, Kory spotted a kiosk showcasing the very first Super Mario game. He dazzled the owner of the kiosk with his super Nintendo skills, but we did have to leave, eventually, seeing as though I had to return to Orlando at some point.

Monday brought with it two significant things. First, Chris' brother Philip arrived to stay with us. Secondly, we, as always, had Muffin Monday/Castle night. Although, this time we didn't actually have any muffin mix, so we had cupcakes instead. The topic of discussion was chosen by Caitlin as German U-Boats. At the end of our deliberation, we concluded that they originate somewhere in the Indian Ocean, and even if you don't provoke them, they're still highly aggressive and probably will sink your seafaring vessel. Avoid U-Boat infested waters at all costs.

Honestly, nothing too particularly exciting happened on Tuesday. I'll give you a real quick rundown of the events of the day, plus a fictional event. Let's see if you can spot which one didn't happen: Classes, Mountains of School Work, slaying the hydra that was terrorizing Orlando, and the occasional break, in between, to watch a few episodes of Heroes, or The Office. Also, not enough people were able to make it to Tuesday's Bible study at Tom's house, so we didn't do that either.

Wednesday, we all got to go do something we'd been looking forward to for awhile. Bear Grylls, the host of Man vs. Wild, came to speak at a church, somewhat nearby, in Longwood. Chris, Bri, JM, Kyle, and I attended, and really enjoyed the event. Unfortunately, though, we didn't get to go meet him afterwords, as immediately following his presentation, he was mobbed by a few hundred other audience members. We returned to the apartment, and were joined by Ryan Kelly. We ended out the night, just hanging out, having a good time, and introducing Ryan Kelly to the wonderfully splendid game known as Apples To Apples.

Hopefully you'll end up hearing from me again before next week,
-Nick, Robert, & Chris

Bagels: They Could Save Your Life

Yeah... yeah... I know... I said I'd get better about updating more often. But don't pay any attention to the fact that I haven't updated in almost a week. Instead, let's jump right into it, shall we?
Friday! Yeah, no... nothing really happened on Friday. Couldn't really get a hold of anyone, and Robert didn't want to leave the apartment. So, just turned out to be one of those boring nights. I suppose, besides classes, earlier that day, that really about sums up Friday. It gets better, though, I promise!

So, Saturday arrives, I wake up bright and early, pick up Bri from UCF, and shortly thereafter, we set out across town to meet up with David, Adriana, Chris (not the Chris I live with), and Ryan for a grand spectacle of sorts: the Toy Story I & II 3D double feature. Considering I'd never seen the second installment of this particular movie saga, the 3D made it that much more enjoyable. The movies ended, and after quite a bit of indecision, the group finally settled on a place to eat. We enjoyed the Ale House, but couldn't quite shake the feeling that our server was up to something sinister... though we never did find out what. After the meal had concluded we left the restaurant and returned to the car. Just then, Chris suggests we head to 5 Guys Burgers & Fries. We just ate... funny right? Nah, he wasn't kidding... That's restaurant #2. But did it stop there? Of course not. Restaurant #3 was Wendy's for free Frostys. Finally, we finished off our dinner tour of the fine cuisines of Orlando and stopped by Walmart. Basically, that entailed all of us wearing all of the cloaks from the Halloween isle, lurking around the store, while simultaneously doing our shopping.

The morning was upon us, again, and so our Sunday began with our trip to Church. After hearing a really good speaker, a few of us (Chris, Caitlin, John, Lindsay, and I) made our way over to Jimmy-John's for some lunch. We discussed the possibility of heading over to the Zendah Grotto, for some Swing Dancing, later that evening. Everyone thought it to be a grand idea, and the plans were made. Fast forward to later that evening... John, Lindsay, and Christian are all ready to leave, from their side of town. Caitlin and I are also ready to head that way. Chris, however, is nowhere to be found. He had previously gone out to do some Parkour, but said he'd be back around 5:30, as we had to leave at 6. Well, the current time is 6:45, but still, no one can get a hold of him. Caitlin and I killed a little more time, and learned some complicated swing moves, including "The Pretzel". Finally, we got a hold of him, but, as it turns out, it was now too late to go, anyways, so we called off the dancing endeavor. Instead, John invited us to come to Cocoa Beach and go Crab Hunting with them. We soon after jumped in the car, met up with them, and made our way to Cocoa. The Crab Hunting turned out to be a lot of fun! I believe that we caught somewhere in the vicinity of around 15 to 20 crabs. And yes, we named each one. All told, Sunday ended on a good note!

I honestly can't tell you that much in the way of exciting occurrences happened for most of the day on Monday. Just mountains of schoolwork. Fortunately, it did get better, later on. Tom gave Chris and I a call and wanted to know if we'd like to meet him for dinner at Olive Garden. After a few hours of hanging out, between the initial phone call, and the actual dinner, we ended up heading to the restaurant, now accompanied by John Michael. 'Twas a lot of fun, and definitely a nice break from the usual Easy Mac, or cereal.

Time and space were not altered in any way, and that meant that the following day was Tuesday, as predicted. It would be kinda neat, though, if the week changed itself up every once in awhile... you know, just to keep us on our feet. But anyways, Tuesday means that it's time to drive 30 miles, out to the middle of nowhere, to teach 2nd grade students for about an hour. The class went pretty well, and the students informed me that I was the nicest teacher they'd ever had. I know that since they're only in second grade, I didn't have a lot of competition for that ranking, but it was nice to hear that, anyways! Later that evening, after returning to this side of civilization, it was time to go to the East Community Group Bible Study at Tom's house. We began our new series on the book of Romans, which I'm really looking forward to, in the coming weeks. Overall, it was, once again, very informative, and enjoyable. After a few quick Wii Sports tournaments, it was time to return home for the night.

The suspense was building, I know. You're all most likely wondering: "What's with the title of this post?" Well, as I provide the explanation of the events that transpired on Wednesday, you will receive your answer. After a good bit of homework, it was time to take one of our bi-weekly, full apartment, trips to the grocery store. Chris, Caitlin, Robert, and I piled into Robert's Mini and arrived at the food library. I decided that this week, I'd enjoy having some bagels for breakfast. We arrived in the bagel isle and began to marvel at the many different varieties of bagels. As we searched, a man drove up in a motorized shopping cart, and stopped right behind me. I moved out of his way, thinking he wanted some bagels, but I was wrong. Instead, he had a message for me: "Choose your bagels wisely" he said, "Bagels could, one day, save your life." At that, he continued on his way, leaving us in a state of bewilderment. I still don't know who this ominous bagel messenger was, but you don't just ignore sagely advise such as that. I took heed of his instructions and carefully selected the very best looking bag of blueberry bagels. A few hours later, we got ready to journey across town for the Wednesday night college group. Just before we were about to jump onto the interstate, I got a call from Bri, wondering if we had left yet. Since we were still in that general area, we swung over to UCF and picked her up. By the time we hit 408, however, we realized that College Group would pretty much be over by the time we got there, so we decided to have a movie night, back at our apartment, compliments of our new Roku player, instead! We searched the Netflix "Watch Instantly" selection for a good 45 minutes, before finally settling on a few new episodes of The Office. Though we didn't make it to church, I still feel like we all had a lot of fun.

Now you know,
-Nick, Chris, & Robert

VA (Victory Over Ants) Day

Could Tuesday have dragged on any longer? Eh, I suppose not. Nothing we can really do about the 24 hour day... I suppose we have the Aztecs to blame for that... Either way, though, the day felt like it lasted forever.

I arose at 9am, to "March of the Clocks", my annoyingly too cheerful for the morning, default alarm, and got ready for the day's commencement. First item of the day: Drive 30 miles to a school, out in the middle of nowhere, and observe a class for an hour. Of course, once that was over, it was time to drive another 30 miles back home (Guess what I get to do every Tuesday for the next five weeks). The next several hours were spent on large heaps of homework. Thankfully, 7:30 came around and things took a turn for the better! Left the house, picked up Bri, and headed to Tom's place for the Tuesday night, East Community Group Bible study. We had a great discussion, as always, then enjoyed hanging out for quite a bit, afterwords. Somehow, we got on the subject of paintball, which, subsequently, led Tom to bring out a few laser-tag pistols. Once we got the hang of them, the firefight was on! The house quickly turned into a battlefield, and the ultimate victor was finally decided by a five pace duel. Our adventures eventually led us to Tom's backyard, where we discovered a colossus of a spider. This took us back inside to learn the identity of the massive arachnid, via the internets. Well, that didn't last long... we quickly digressed to watching amusing Youtube videos, and learning everything you could ever possibly want to know about the Wizard of Oz. Yeah... try to imagine the rabbit trail that led there. The night concluded around 1AM, and then it was time to return to our beloved APT203.

Today ended up being a pretty tame day. A bit of schoolwork, a bit of relaxation, a bit of church, and a bit of victory. Yeah, that's right, today we triumphed over the dastardly ant kingdom. After sealing up the cracks in the front door, a while back, we were perplexed as to where they were still coming from. The solution came about as the result of a plan that required the use of an excessively inordinate amount of time. The decision was made to watch a single ant, and follow it's every move across the house. After an immensely long journey, the ant did, indeed, unwittingly lead us to the area of their perimeter breach. Oh, you ants thought you were so clever with your secret entry point, across the room, on the ceiling, but our plan went off without a hitch, and you brought about your own demise! Oh, irony! Actually, is that irony, or does that just suck? You don't know... You don't understand complicated English concepts; you're just an ant. Or, at least, you were... now you're dead. Victory is ours.

Ciao,
-Nick, Chris, & Robert

Sputnik, Swing Dancing, & Orlando Traffic

Please allow me a few seconds to formulate some new excuses for why I haven't updated in a few days... First, lets start with the fact that my professor suddenly decided to annihilate whatever free time I once had. Also, I've been trying to find some new Modern Swing music. Fun results include "Big Bad Voodoo Daddy", "Wolfgang Parker", and my personal favorite "Movits!" (Swedish Swing Music with hip-hop vocals. I love it because it's amazingly different... check it out)

Well, from this past Thursday, the only thing that I can remember is that I absolutely conquered my Microteach #1. I have a somewhat large fear of public speaking (Then again, the fear of public speaking is more prevalent than the fear of death), so I thought I'd fly right through the speech in about 5 minutes (As opposed to the 15 minute minimum), and do terrible. Turns out, I passed the minimum requirement and reached 21 minutes. As I passed 15, I was told I hit the mark, but the rest of my class encouraged me to keep going, as they were apparently really enjoying my lesson. Not the most exciting thing ever, but it was the most exciting event of that day, plus I'm one step closer to conquering my fear of public speaking. Boosh!

Friday turned out to be a lot of fun! After Robert introduced me to the show "Burn Notice", I decided I'd head over to UCF for Swing Knights (Swing Dancing). I tried to see if I could get people to come along, but everyone I asked already had stuff going on. Robert was going to join me, but due to the fact that the floor of his room is comparable to an abyss, he sliced his foot open on a crowbar, and was unable to even fit his newly bandaged foot into a shoe, which subsequently meant that he was now unable to join me. So, I made my way down there thinking that since no one else could come, I'd just stay for the free lesson, then head back home. On my way out, however, I ran into some friends I hadn't seen in a year or two. They convinced me to stay for the dance, and I'm glad that I did. I had a really good time! Afterwords, I returned to the apartment and ended the night with Chris and Robert, as we watched the delightfully odd Japanese film, "Battle Royale".

Saturday ended up being a pretty chill day. Our only real event of the day was that Robert and I went to go see Zombieland. I didn't have very high expectations for it, thinking that it would be cheesy and crude. Surprisingly, it was neither. It turned out be a really good, really funny movie. If you enjoy the Zombie genre, I highly recommend it.

Sunday, we woke up and made our way over to Church. After a really good church service, a few of us moseyed over to Zaxby's, once again, for some lunch. A few hours later, we concluded our lunch and discussion, and made our way home. Upon our arrival, we remembered that October 4th is Sputnik Day! Since we forgot to actually make any plans, Robert improvised and made us all some corndogs, for dinner. Not your typical Sputnik Day celebration, but it worked, nonetheless. Later, we were invited to the G's (Grant and Graham's) place for the hang out extravaganza with the two of them and Crystal. 'Twas a fun time! We enjoyed some Apples To Apples, Jenga, Cutthroat Pool, and some other game, the name of which, I can't remember, that we'd never heard of before. Either way, it was a lot of fun. Sadly, we had to depart home and continue our college studies. I've decided that the whole school thing kinda ruins college...

Today, after hours upon hours of homework, Robert, JM, and I rewarded ourselves with some half price sushi at Kirin Sushi. The first time I've ever had chicken sushi. It was actually pretty good. Afterwords, the three of us returned to the apartment, only to find Chris and Ryan Kelly waiting for us. While we waited for our blueberry muffins to finish baking, we enjoyed a few rounds of Rockband. Once the muffins finished, we all sat down and it was tasked to Ryan Kelly to choose this week's topic of discussion. This week: Orlando Traffic. We decided that it was better than Canadian traffic (Consisting mainly of yaks), and definitely better than human trafficking. At some point we digressed to discussing how the stems of falling apples disrupt the earth's orbit. Either way, it turns out we were all deceived, and that Ryan Kelly secretly changed the topic of discussion to himself. Surprise! Later on, Caitlin joined us for our Monday viewing of this week's new episode of Castle. We've noticed that each week, our Castle viewing group seems to grow. The first week, Caitlin joined us, the next week JM and Caitlin joined us, then this week we added Ryan Kelly to our group. At this rate, by the time the season finale comes around, our living room may not be able to accommodate everyone.

Oyasuminasai,
-Nick, Robert, & Chris

Origami & Ants... But Not Origami Ants

What did we do today, you ask? Or at least that's why I assume you've come to this blog. Well, allow me to fill you in:
Early this morning, I awoke to the sound of Robert's alarm clock, as I usually do. It tends to go off a few minutes before mine, but once I'm up, I'm up. I spent the next several hours finishing up the homework that I neglected to complete yesterday. Enthralling blog post, so far, I know...

Moving on, I headed out, across town, around 2, to go get re-trained for my JA Service Learning assignment. I received the wonderful news, last week, that the school I was assigned to, dropped out of the JA program, so I had to go get re-trained for a different school, classroom, and grade. Unfortunately, today was supposed to be the day I started the actual Service Learning, but now that's all bumped back a week... Oh well, what are ya gonna do, right? I seized the opportunity, since I was already on that side of town, to exchange my old lab coat for one that wasn't so gigantic. Now I have a delightful new lab coat, that's actually the right size! Boosh! One step closer to completing my Halloween costume (Not the reason I bought the coat in the first place, but it works for it). Definitely going for the FIF "The End Is Near" scientist, this year.

Later this afternoon, the time came to go to Tom's place for the Tuesday night Bible Study. Enjoyable, as always. Upon my return to APT203, I found Robert, hard at work on one of the new hobbies he's trying out: Origami. I asked him to make me a swan, he made me a box...

On the flipside, Chris made an interesting discovery: Ants seem to be immune to microwaves. If you didn't know, we've been waging a war against the colony of ants that have been making their way into our apartment via an unknown entry point, as we've sealed up pretty much every potential gateway we've found. The crafty buggers also, somehow gained entry into the microwave... Your guess as to how they did so, is as good as ours. Anyways, Chris decided to unleash the equivalent of a miniature, 25 second supernova upon them. He opened the door, only to find them still prancing about, as if nothing had happened. Even after another 30 seconds, they were still flaunting their imperiousness to microwaves. One thing is for sure, though... These highly intelligent, radioactive ants may have won this battle, but we will triumph in the war.

Over & Out,
-Nick, Robert, and Chris

We'd Appreciate Our Livestock Back...

'Twas a busy Monday. Started off with our daily classroom ventures, then it was back home to finish a bit of homework. After I'd completed roughly half, Pat invited me to view the new webcam feeds in their apartment. It's funny how everything else becomes incredibly interesting when you've got homework to do, so, I happily obliged. I then proceeded to log on and speak to Pat and John via that method of communication. It was pretty neat. Seems like it would be a fun thing to do here. Robert thought so, as well, and began to think of ways in which we might be able to replicate the idea. So, if anything comes of that in the near future, we'll keep you posted.

Soon after, Robert and I decided to head out to the bazaars of Orlando, and run some errands. After acquiring the items we set out for, I had to stop by the bank. While conversing with the bank teller, Robert sat in the waiting area and found a coloring book. As he colored, he reached a predicament, of sorts. What color to color the animated mouse's eyes? He leaned over and asked the girl next to him if she could provide him with the information he needed. She didn't seem to have any ideas, but simultaneously, did seem to be a little creeped out. Despite this setback, Robert did finish his multichromatic masterpiece, and it now hangs proudly on our refrigerator.

Today was, once again, as you all know, Muffin Monday. We celebrated around 9, tonight. This week, however, John-Michael joined us. As the guest of honor, he was given the opportunity to pick this week's topic of discussion. The topic: Alien Abduction. We decided that we're a little tired of them stealing our cows... ya know... it gets old. You buy a cow, then the next day, you go outside and find an "I.O.U. 1 Cow" note in it's place. They never do replace your cow, though... There's gotta be something to it, though. We figure that if the aliens are smart enough to build machines that not only enable space travel, but also tractor beams used for abduction, who's to say that haven't built machines that turn beef into, say, teriyaki burgers? Either way, you can rest assured that while you read this, plans are being formulated to reciprocate the gesture and abduct one of them. So, to our neighbors: If you've somehow managed to find this blog and decided to follow it, and if you see us up on the roof, wielding odd, makeshift contraptions, there's a good possibility that that's what we're doing. Then again, that may be for something completely different, as well... you never really know...

Fare thee well,
-Nick, Robert, & Chris

How Five Iron Frenzy Saved The Day

So, you thought the hiatus between the last two APT203 posts was long? Well, it was. But this one was longer. We'll try not to do that again. Let's see if my musings can do Tuesday through Sunday (Hoping I remember all of the events that transpired) any justice...
Tuesday started off with some bad news for Chris. The tires on his car apparently had some sort of feud with the rest of his vehicle and started trying to leave. To avoid being a casualty of collateral damage, brought on by the aforementioned debacle, he had to hold off on driving his car until he could take it in to the auto repair shop to get counseling and set everything back to peace and equilibrium.
For Robert and I, this meant that we were in charge of driving Chris to different destinations of his choosing. That morning, Chris and I woke up early, had some breakfast smoothies, and headed across town to Adidas. The rest of the day commenced as usual, and then the time came to go to the Tuesday night Bible study at Tom's place. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend because Chris needed another ride across town. It's okay, though! There's always next week!

Wednesday, not much in the way of exciting things happened until later in the evening. JM, Kyle, and I headed over to First Baptist of Orlando for the Wednesday night College Group. It was a fun time, as always. Heard a good message, played some makeshift table-top four square, and then waited around until about 11:30, entertaining ourselves with tennis equipment in the empty parking lot, til it was time to go pick up Chris from Adidas. While the remaining employees closed up shop, we decided to have a little fun. We stood motionless, at the windows, staring ominously at Chris. Every time he moved to a different location, we followed. Chris obviously knew who we were, but we apparently frightened the other employees quite a bit. Overall, great success!

The good majority of Thursday was spent doing homework. Started at 9am and finished around 2:30. After I had successfully conquered all of my homework, I got to relax for a little while. Later on, Caitlin arrived. It was decided that dinner should be made, so we journeyed to Target and acquired the necessary foodstuffs. The delicious feast was completed and subsequently enjoyed by all. The night ended with my first ever attempt to make a music video for one of my Mashups. Here's how it turned out:


Friday followed with the newest installment of Brunch Thursday. Robert, aided by his new deep-fryer, prepared some doughnut holes for us. They were no less than delectable. We soon after embarked onto our final educational sessions of the week and then got ready to venture down to the Fort. Upon our arrival, I dropped off John-Michael, and was soon after invited to watch a movie with Kory, Maggie, and Kelsey. About 45 minutes into the movie, a vote was cast, and it was unanimously decided that the movie was absolutely terrible. We took the video back to Blockbuster and spent the next hour, to no avail, trying to find a new one. Once it became clear that we couldn't decide on a new movie, we just ended up heading back to Kelsey's place and watching Back To The Future. You can't go wrong with that.

Saturday, we celebrated Matt's birthday. A big group of us moseyed over to Ale House for the birthday dinner, then regrouped at Matt's house, afterwords. We all had a lot of fun. Most everyone congregated in the living room and played Rockband, while Kory and I jammed on our violins. Mostly, that just entailed us trying to learn how to play The Song of Time. Soon, though, I'll get the hang of it, and the ability to shift night to day (And Vice Versa) will be available to me, at my very whim. So, that's definitely something to look forward to...

I can't tell you what Chris, nor Robert, did on Sunday (mostly because I really don't know, and also because they never update their parts of the blog), but the first half of mine was spent transporting furniture to my Grandpa's apartment, then helping my dad out with miscellaneous duties around the office. I was supposed to go to lunch with Sarah and Paris, but unfortunately, those plans ended up falling through. On the bright side, though, there were festivities going on over in Gateway. So, a few of us headed that way and enjoyed some volleyball, relaxation, and the company of good friends.

After hanging out at Gateway for a bit, the time finally came to head back to Orlando. For some reason, after a little while of driving, the car seems to have an effect to it, that makes you a tad sleepy. I cranked up the air and the music, but that didn't seem to help... That is, until a Five Iron Frenzy song came on. I realized that I was noticeably more awake for the duration of that song. As soon as it ended, however, I started getting sleepy again. Using my incredible powers of discernment, I decided that FIF would be the correct music choice for the remainder of the ride. They did the trick, and that's the tale of how Five Iron Frenzy kept me awake, and saved the day, once again! Also, as a fun side note, halfway up I-75, I get a call from Chris. Much to my surprise, he began to recite the lyrics to the exact song I was listening to. Turns out, he randomly found me on the interstate and tuned into the radio station that my iPod FM Transmitter operates on, and was able to listen to the music on my iPod, in his car. We've arrived, safely, back to Orlando, and are now currently awaiting whatever adventures tomorrow may bring.

Until then,
-Nick, Chris, & Robert

Violins, Ponce de Leon, & Steampunk Day

Wow, so a bit of a hiatus, there... My apologies to anyone who actually reads this!
I guess this post will attempt to cover the events of Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. However, since I can't recall anything exciting happening on Friday, I'll just spare you any sort of nonsensical rambling that I may have done to commemorate the lack of exciting occurrences of that day, and skip to Saturday. Then again, most of this whole last paragraph has been one big ramble... So I guess you weren't spared after all. This blog post will apparently show you no mercy...

Saturday- Having previously talked with the good people at Atlantic Strings Violin Shop, I was informed that my eBay violin purchase was somewhat of a colossal rip-off. For the violin to even get close to playable condition, I would have to replace pretty much everything, including the strings, bridge, and tuning pegs. All told, that would cost me more than I bought the instrument for, in the first place. I inquired as to what I should do about this dilemma, and fortunately, they had some good news for me! As of right now, Atlantic Strings has a violin special going on. I found a really nice new instrument, marked down from $350 to $109. Definitely excited about that! But could I afford it? And what would I do with my old one? Well, not coincidentally, the latter question solves the former question. JM and I spent the day exploring the Pawn Shops of Orlando. As they all recognized what a gigantic swindle that violin had been, as well, the most I was able to get for it was $30. Luckily, the difference was what I would have had to pay for all the replacement parts anyways. So, now it was a question of: Put new parts on a cheap instrument, or use that same money to buy a significantly higher quality instrument, with all of those parts standard? Well, the choice was resoundingly clear, and now Value Pawn is the proud owner of my old violin. My new violin arrives Wednesday!

That very same day, we acquired Rockband 2. Now, with songs by such artists as: Coheed & Cambria, Underoath, The Devil Wears Prada, Modest Mouse, Rise Against, Between The Burried & Me, Kutless, All That Remains, Mastodon, A Day To Remember, and others, we have something to, not only, enjoy, but also entertain company with! So, hooray for that!

Sunday morning we headed out to our church, First Baptist of Orlando, and, as always, enjoyed the service. Afterwords, we moseyed on over to the building next door to enjoy some $1 coffee drinks, provided by Starbucks. The lot of us usually go out to lunch somewhere, after service, but this week, everyone dispersed to their own separate activities, for one reason or another. Although, four of us (John, JM, Bri, and I) did end up hanging out at Zaxby's for an hour or so, before making the journey back home. The rest of the day was just spent catching up on homework and things of that nature.

The next morning followed with another successful Muffin Monday. This week's topic of discussion: Ponce De Leon. It was decided that if he ever did find the Fountain of Youth, a battle between him, the Highlander, and possibly Dorian Grey, would be no less than epic. Also, a little known fact, tying into the short stature of Ponce De Leon... The reason America was named after Amerigo Vespucci, and not "Columbia" after Columbus, was because Columbus turned out to just be Ponce De Leon, standing on Napoleon Bonaparte's shoulders. I really don't recall how we reached that conclusion, but nonetheless, the Board of People-Who-Name-Continents-After-Other-People frowned upon their devious scheme. I know... we were just as surprised by this information as you were...

Continuing on through Monday, Robert discovered that it was the birthday of H.G.Wells, and declared the day "Steampunk Day." And what better way to celebrate Steampunk Day than with a free Hot Air Balloon ride? Well, it just so happened that UCF was hosting free hot air balloon rides, on campus! Unfortunately, the rides were postponed due to bad weather, and didn't begin until the sun went down. Then again, it was also first-come-first-serve, so battling 55,000 other students would have made us less likely to actually be able to get a ride, anyways. It was the thought that mattered, though. Instead, we all just hung out back at the apartment and enjoyed the Season 2 premier of Castle.

Sayonara,
-Nick, Chris, & Robert

The Great Faucet Debacle: Resolved

Now to catch you up on the events of Wednesday and Thursday.
Even though I'd rather mix things up and start with Thursday, I figure starting with Wednesday follows a more logical progression... Anyways, Wednesday came and went without much in the way of exciting events taking place. That is, except for that maintenance finally came and fixed the faucet! It only took a month and a half of asking, to finally get them up here. At the rate of 1 gallon every three and a half minutes for a month and a half, that roughly comes out to... a lot of water. Funny thing is, though... it's kinda quiet up here now... possibly a little too quiet. Don't think that turning it back on hasn't crossed our minds...

After that was finally resolved, we made our way over to the church for College Group. 'Twas a fun way to finish out the day.
Thursday came, and brought with it an event that we've been excited for, for a while now: The Great Faith Debate! The participants in this verbal joust were none other than Dinesh D'souza, representing Christianity, versus Christopher Hitchens, representing Atheists. At the risk of sounding incredibly biased, I felt like D'souza came out on top. Even when D'souza was not given an opportunity to make a rebuttal, I was still, myself, able to pick out quite a few flaws and misrepresentations in Hitchen's arguments. Ever present was the use of dodging questions (replaced with humor), as well as a few straw-man and Ad Absurdum fallacies. Nonetheless, the debate was a lot of fun, and very informative! I could have sat there and watched for another few hours, but alas, it had to end... Afterword's, however, we all enjoyed dinner at Jimmy-John's and then dollar bowling with Chris, JM, Ryan Kelly, Brant, Charlene, Weston, and I. So, all told, the night turned out to be as much fun as we hoped it would!

Readers, adieu!
-Nick, Chris, & Robert

There's No Such Thing As Goodbye...

Perhaps, when you passed your kindly neighborhood viking, today, you noticed that he looked indescribably downtrodden. Hopefully, you stopped and offered your condolences... because today was the day that our friend Craig moved back to North Carolina. This entry is dedicated to him.

To you, our friend, we will miss you more than you know. It has been an amazing privilege to have gotten the chance to know you this past year and a half. You've been an amazing blessing in my life, not just as someone with an unrivaled sense of humor, and the ability to always make us laugh, but also as an example of someone who seems to always demonstrate the uncompromising drive to follow Christ in everything. I know that God has called you back to North Carolina for a reason, and wherever this new path leads, you're going to make a lasting impact, there, as you did here.
I also know that there's no such thing as goodbye, only "See you later," but in the mean time, I'm going to miss having someone else around who truly understands what it means to be Grim and Frostbitten.

Always know that you have a family here, in Florida, who loves you. We're only just a phone call, text message, or Facebook post away, so whether it be just to stay in contact, or if there's anything you ever need, we'll be here. I think I speak for all of us when I say that we'll miss the Orlando we knew with you here. But again, there's no such thing as goodbye, only "see you later."

So, see you later, my friend
-Nick, Robert, & Chris

The Pseudo Scythe Cache

Gather 'round, and make yourselves comfortable for the tale of Sunday and Monday...

This Sunday commenced forth, as typical Orlando Sundays usually do: Church in the Morning, lunch with friends afterword, then some time for a little rest and whatnot. Later that night, Chris, Bri, and I journeyed to Kissimmee to join Craig and the rest of the gang (And by gang, I don't mean group of people involved in miscellaneous criminal activities, though, with our combined skill sets, I think we would make for a pretty mischievous crew, if that's what we decided to set our efforts towards) for a night of bowling! As always, with our wonderful friends, you can't help but have a great time! Also, we got to wondering, why we don't live in that part of town... Some available activities include a large castle structure, Paradise (Apparently it's been there the whole time), a street by the name of Seven Dwarfs, and the icing on the cake: The Viking Motel!

This evening, the lot of us gathered together again for a feast, at the Pig & Whistle, in honor of Craig, who is heading back to North Carolina tomorrow. We enjoyed the company of our amazing friend, and hopefully, he'll be stopping by none other than APT203, in a bit, and hanging out with us, here, for the rest of the night.

On the ride back home, in the midst of Robert explaining to us our Steampunk aliases, a debate was struck up over the pronunciation of certain words. These words included "Pseudo," "Cache," "Crayon," "Scythe," and one other mystery word that none of us could remember after we moved onto our second word. We tried getting one of the pay-toll operators involved, hoping it would solve the conflict, but it only made things worse, as they offered yet another possible pronunciation. We believe we've settled on the proper vocalization of the word "scythe", wherein the only challenge left is convincing Jeff to say it properly, but as for the rest of the words, if we continue to neglect the ever useful online dictionary, your input on these matters would be greatly appreciated.

Entering the apartment complex, we spied a free dining room table, in excellent condition. Once we came to the realization that fitting it into the Mini Cooper wasn't going to happen, we devised a plan to have me stand guard over the newly acquired furniture, while Chris brought back his car. So, for the next 15 minutes, there I sat, at the entrance to the apartment complex, greeting our new neighbors and waiting for Chris to return...

Behold! Our new dining room table!

The night concluded with Muffin Monday Midnight Madness! The rules for Muffin Monday (as far as time is concerned) have yet to be set in stone, though, if we ever gain access to a tablet and chisel, that wouldn't be a bad idea... maybe a wall decoration or something...
But anywho, this week's topic of discussion was The Minotaur! We got to thinking... the Minotaur is half man, half bull, right? Well, do you think it thinks people thoughts, or bull thoughts (Like "Hey, we're out of things a Minotaur needs), or possibly a combination of the two? That eventually, somehow, segued into a discussion about how screwed up Robert's firstborn son is going to be when Robert makes him go on an unaccompanied quest to Hawaii to throw a ring into a volcano, or something along those lines, the day he turns 8... But hey, we'll leave that one for Child-Services to worry about...

Hasta luego, friends,
-Nick, Robert, & Chris

Burn Blog After Reading

Well, it happened, as we all, inevitably, knew it would: I missed a couple of days worth of updates, due to the combination of a busy schedule, and the fact that I can't ever get Robert to update on the days I'm unavailable. So, what's been going on for the past few days, in the land of APT203, you ask? Well, allow me to fill you in...

As you all are well aware, Friday is "Brunch Thursday!" In preparation for the following morning, JM stayed the night on Thursday night, so we could rise, bright and early to take my first shot at turning regular bread into delectable french toast. Well, we did just that (Though the "delectable" part is up for debate). Our feast amounted to no less than 40 pieces of french toast, as well as a large pile of sausage and scrambled eggs.
Much to our dismay, we, one by one, discovered that each of our confirmed guests had been called elsewhere, last minute, to attend events that were less optional than brunch. We, of course, understood and the four of us enjoyed our mid-morning banquet.
This, however, is us, missing you guys...

There's always next week! =)

After our daily educational enterprises had come to an end, the weekend had arrived. We lounged about for an hour or so, then headed across town to help John and Pat move into their new apartment! We expected that we would still be there, moving, into all hours of the night, but we ended up finishing in a rather quick amount of time. The events that transpired afterwords involved Hawaiian pizza and a movie. All told, we had a fun time! (Also, as a side note... upon my arrival, John gifted to me, an amazing electric typewriter that he thought I would enjoy! And yes, yes I really do! Thank you, again!)

Following the events of Friday, came Saturday, as it usually does, except on those rare occasions when Friday gives Saturday and Sunday a miss and goes straight into Monday. But continuing on into the weekend, I decided to lend a hand with the restore the streets project, down on Orange Blossom Trail. I left at noon, so I figured I would arrive around 12:15... Man, was I wrong...
As I was heading out, I received a call from JM, so I asked him if he wanted to come along. He agreed, so I moseyed on toward UCF. Well, on my way there, I realize that my gas light is on. So, to the gas station! Now I notice, I don't have my gas card... So I go back to the apartment, pick it up, head back to the gas station, and get some gas. So, back to UCF, then... Nah, just kidding... the "Check Tire Pressure" light came on. So, after ensuring that my tires had sufficient air, I was finally able to pick up JM. We made our way across town, and arrived at the designated parking area. Then began the 20 minute search for the trailer park...
Time of arrival: 1:45. So, we got to help out for about an hour and a half. I felt kinda bad for being so late, but on the bright side, we made it there in time to at least get a little something done.
The rest of the day came and went, and now the day concludes with a bowl of Robert's delicious Tater-Tot Casserole, and the delightfully odd, yet entertaining movie, Burn After Reading.

Until tomorrow,
-Nick, Robert, & Chris

Pets We Probably Shouldn't Have...

Honestly, looking back on today, all I see is one incredibly mundane blur of schoolwork. On top of not really getting to do much in the way of anything exciting, I also missed the Bible Study at Tom's place, tonight... I guess it's just one of those days that won't really go down in history (Except this blog, obviously... and probably anywhere else that anything exciting, or even remotely interesting happened to other people).

Although, Robert and I did get onto the subject of how jumpy and easily startled his cat, Oreo, is. That got us thinking... You know those Fainting Goats that, well, faint when they're startled? Yeah, we can never have one of those...
We already know that we would constantly be jumping out from behind things, every opportunity we got, trying to startle it and make it faint. We're pretty sure it'd have an actual heart attack and last, give or take, a week...

Anyways, now that I'm finished with schoolwork and telling you why we can't have nice things, I'm going to go figure out how to make French Toast for Brunch Thursday, this Friday...
-Nick, Robert, & Chris